Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
Airport:--- Ten more days to go and the Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIAE) may have to face serious penalties if they defaulted on the bonds they have secured for various projects. The bonds SMN News understand stands at $160M which had to be used up since 2014, but the lack of the building permits for the Food Based Operations (FBO) and fire station may well place the government owned company in a real predicament. One of things that can happen the bonds can be recalled because the funds were not used during the time frame in which it had to be used and PJIAE will also have to pay the interests and face a penalty while losing its financial credibility.According to information SMN News received PJIAE signed a number of agreements and concessions with several stakeholders in order to recoup the cost of the FBO project. If the project is not completed then PJIAE will again be in default and can be held liable towards the stakeholders.Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs dispatched a letter to PJIAE on May 29th asking a number of questions on the bidding process while Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs who is also the acting Minister of VROMI is using the power of the holding company to stagnate the issuance of the building permit for the two projects. Even though it’s clear that the tactics are being used to stagnate the process, PJIAE submitted the answers and relevant documents to the Prime Minister since the ending of May and to date PJIAE have not heard from the department of VROMI, or the Prime Minister. Clearly there is a lack of communication between government and management of PJIAE.It is clear that the Prime Minister is violating the articles of incorporation of PJIAE since they are clearly interfering in the daily operations of the government owned company. While the shareholder representative has the right to request information from the company they surely cannot jeopardize the operations of the government owned company.
Supervisory Board --- What are they doing as the clock ticks away?
While all of this is happening the Supervisory Board who was appointed by the current leader of government sits back and does nothing. If the supervisory board was working in the interest of PJIAE then they would have gotten their lawyers to take the shareholder representative to court. Based on the information and documentation that was provided to SMN News on this current saga it’s clear that both the supervisory board, shareholder representative and the leader of the UPP has something they are cooking up against the Managing Director Regina Labega.
